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The Great Historic
Families of Scotland
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to Lambie
THE JOHNSTONES OF
ANNANDALE.
page 57
The chief seat of the Johnstones in those days of 'tugging and riving' was
Lochwood, in the parish of Johnstone, the position of which, in the midst of
bogs and morasses, made it a fortalice of great strength, and led to the remark
of James VI., in allusion to the purpose which it served as a stronghold of
freebooters, that 'the man who built it must have been a thief at heart.'
Lochwood, however, was not the only fastness in which the Johnstones stored
their booty. A few miles from Moffat there is a remarkable hollow, surrounded by
hills on every side except at one narrow point, where a small stream issues from
it. 'It looks,' says Pate in Peril, in 'Redgauntlet,' 'as if four hills were
laying their heads together to shut out any daylight from the dark hollow space
between them. A deep, black, blackguard-looking abyss of a hole it is, and goes
straight down from the roadside as perpendicular as it can do to be a heathery
brae. At the bottom there is a small bit of a brook that you would think could
hardly find its way out from the hills that are so closely jammed round it.'
This inaccessible hollow bore the name of the 'Marquis's Beef-stand,' or
'Beef-tub,' because 'the Annandale loons used to put their stolen cattle in
there.' The Beef-stand was the scene of a remarkable adventure to a Jacobite
gentleman while on the road to Carlisle to stand his trial for his share in the
rebellion of 1745. He made his escape from his guards at this spot in the manner
which Sir Walter Scott makes Maxwell of Summertrees, who bore the sobriquet of
'Pate in Peril,' describe in graphic terms as an adventure of his own:—
'I found myself on foot,' he said, 'on a misty morning with my hand, just for
fear of going astray, linked into a handcuff, as they call it, with poor Harry
Redgauntlet's fastened into the other; and there we were trudging along with
about a score more that had thrust their horns ower deep in the bog, just like
ourselves, and a sergeant's guard of redcoats, with two file of dragoons, to
keep all quiet and give us heart to the road.…Just when we came on the edge of
this Beef-stand of the Johnstones, I slipped out my hand from the handcuff,
cried to Harry, "Follow me," whisked under the belly of the dragoon
horse, flung my plaid round me with the speed of lightning, threw myself on my
side, for there was no keeping my feet, and down the brae hurled I, over
heather, and fern, and blackberries, like a barrel down Chalmers' Close in Auld
Reekie. I never could help laughing when I think how the scoundrel redcoats must
have been bum-hazed; for the mist being, as I said, thick, they had little
notion, I take it, that they were on the verge of such a dilemma. I was half-way
down—for rowing is faster wark than rinning—ere they could get at their
arms; and then it was flash, flash, flash, rap, rap, rap, from the edge of the
road; but my head was too jumbled to think anything either of that or of the
hard knocks I got among the stones. I kept my senses together, whilk has been
thought wonderful by all that ever saw the place; and I helped myself with my
hands as gallantly as I could, and to the bottom I came. There I lay for half a
moment; but the thought of a gallows is worth all the salts and scent-bottles in
the world for bringing a man to himself. Up I sprung like a four-year-old colt.
All the hills were spinning round me like so many great big humming-tops. But
there was no time to think of that neither, more especially as the mist had
risen a little with the firing. I could see the villains like sae many crows on
the edge of the brae; and I reckon that they saw me, for some of the loons were
beginning to crawl down the hill, but liker auld wives in their red cloaks,
coming frae a field-preaching, than such a souple lad as I. Accordingly they
soon began to stop and load their pieces. "Good-e'en to you,
gentlemen," thought I, "if that is to be the gate of it. If you have
any farther word with me you maun come as far as Carriefrawgauns." And so
off I set, and never buck went faster ower the braes than I did; and I never
stopped till I had put three waters, reasonably deep, as the season was rainy,
half-a-dozen mountains, and a few thousand acres of the wurst moss and ling in
Scotland betwixt me and my friends the redcoats.'
Sir Walter Scott says he saw in his youth the gentleman to whom the adventure
actually happened.* [p.56] The Johnstones, unlike the Armstrongs, Elliots, and
Grahams, 'sought the beeves that made their broth' only in Cumberland and
Northumberland, though they would probably have had no scruples in making a prey
of any outlying cattle belonging to the Maxwells, with whom they had a
hereditary feud.Lord Maxwell, the head of this great family, was in the
sixteenth century the most powerful man in the south-west of Scotland. But the
Johnstones, though inferior in numbers and power, were able, through their
valour, and the strong position which they held in the mountainous district of
Annandale, to maintain their ground against their formidable rivals. In 1585
Lord Maxwell opposed the profligate government of the worthless royal favourite,
James Stewart, Earl of Arran, and was in consequence declared a rebel. According
to the common, but most objectionable practice of that period, the Court gave a
commission to Johnstone, his enemy, to proceed against him with fire and sword,
and to apprehend him; and two bands of hired soldiers, commanded by Captains
Cranstoun and Lammie, were despatched to Johnstone's assistance. They were
intercepted, however, on Crawford Moor, by Robert Maxwell, of Castlemilk, and
after a sharp conflict the mercenary forces were defeated. Lammie and most of
his company were killed, and Cranstoun was taken prisoner. In relating this
incident Sir Walter Scott says, 'It is devoutly to be wished that this
Lammie
may have been the miscreant who, in the day of Queen Mary's distress, when she
surrendered to the nobles at Carberry Hill, "his ensign being of white
taffety, had painted on it the cruel murder of King Henry, and laid down before
her Majesty at what time she presented herself as prisoner to the Lords."
It was very probably so, as he was then, and continued to be till his death, a
hired soldier of the Government. Nine months after the incident in question, the
following entry appears in the Lord Treasurer's books, under March 18, 1567-8:
"To Captain Andro Lambie, for his expenses passand
of Glasgow to Edinburgh to uplift certain men of weir, and to make one
Handsenyie of white taffety, £25" [Scots]. He was then acting for the
Regent Moray. It seems probable that, having spoiled his ensign by the picture
of the king's murder, he was now gratified with a new one at the expense of his
employer.'— See Domestic Annals of Scotland, i. p. 156, note, and Border
Minstrelsy, ii. p. 134, note.* Maxwell followed up his success by [p.57] setting
fire to Johnstone's castle of Lochwood, remarking with savage glee that he would
give Lady Johnstone light enough by which 'to set her hood.' Unfortunately,
besides the 'haill house, bedding, and plenisching,' Johnstone's charter-chest,
containing the whole muniments of the family, and many other valuable papers,
perished in the flames.
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